


It's wanting more that's gonna send me to my knees

by Gorgeousgreymatter



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Banter, But lots of self-indulgent Jess musings because I can't help it okay, Dean sucks and that's the tea, F/M, First Time, Idiots in Love, Jess loves Rory, Jess tries so hard, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Porn with Feelings, Post-Season/Series 04 AU, Redemption, Road Trips, Second Chances, Summer Vacation, and Rory loves Jess, and a little plot, season 4 fix it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:42:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29424744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gorgeousgreymatter/pseuds/Gorgeousgreymatter
Summary: Jess liked getting what he wanted.But he'd never in his wildest imagination expected a girl like Rory Gilmore to be it for him. But she was, and she is, and fuck he isn’t sure he’s ever going to stop missing her. Stop feeling the absence of her, an itch he can’t scratch even though his hands are bloody from trying.
Relationships: Rory Gilmore & Jess Mariano, Rory Gilmore/Jess Mariano
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	1. I want to feel the car crash

**Author's Note:**

> Rewatching Gilmore Girls for the 1000th time. Never written for this fandom before, but I'm taking a leap! This will be a short chapter fic. Less than ten, and more of a medium burn than a slow burn, I think. Basically, this first chapter is a fix-it for the dorm conversation and goes from there.

It’s wanting more that’s gonna send me to my knees

When he's lying in bed at night, alone with his thoughts, it's impossible not to think about it. How it had crept up on him, the wanting. Like quicksand, he hadn’t quite realized what was happening until he was drowning in it. When he first came to Stars Hollow (or, rather, was unceremoniously dumped there), he can’t remember a single moment where he didn’t feel like his skin was crawling, tight, and stretched, like walking around wearing clothes that didn’t fit.

Until he saw her. 

It wasn’t love at first sight, because they weren’t in _Troilus and Cressida,_ and if he had to answer Lennon and McCartney’s eternal question ( _“Do you believe in a love at first sight?”)_ , he’d probably say no. Because Jess isn’t that naive (has never, _ever_ been that naive, mostly because he could never afford to be). But there was something about her freakishly blue eyes staring back at him that threw him for a loop. She'd never looked at him the way every other fucking mental patient in that town did. It wasn’t judging -- it was something else. Sometimes it’d felt like she’d be watching him so intently, so nakedly, that he’d have to look down just to make sure he’d actually remembered to put clothes on that morning.

When he’d started staring right back, it’d become a little like a game. A secret one (because of her fifty-foot boyfriend and the madding crowd of her _town cum mental hospital),_ but Jess can admit now just as he could admit then: he liked the chase. 

And while it may have taken a while for him to really fall for her ( _not that long,_ his conscience needles _, she had you by the short and curly heartstrings the minute she called you ‘dodger’),_ he’d _wanted_ her from the beginning. 

And Jess liked getting what he wanted. 

But he'd never in his wildest imagination expected a girl like Rory Gilmore to be _it_ for him. But she was, and she is, and fuck he isn’t sure he’s ever going to stop missing her. Stop feeling the absence of her, an itch he can’t scratch even though his hands are bloody from trying.

Maybe that’s what does it. The desperation. Because he misses her so much that it _hurts._ Jess is supposed to be used to pain -- he’s no stranger to all kinds. Liz, parent of the year that she was, might have stopped just short of slapping him around, but that didn’t mean her boyfriends did. Until he got big enough to start hitting back, that is. 

This pain, it’s different. Aching and empty -- like he imagines a phantom limb must feel like. A hole in his gut that’s somehow nothing like the clawing hunger he remembers from his childhood. Because somehow, it’s worse.

  
  


It’s stupid and crazy and impulsive and reckless, but Jess has had every one of those labels hurled at him in some way or another his entire life, so maybe it’s just on-brand for him. Like he has a choice anyway because ever since he showed up again in Stars Hollow, it feels like there’s a hook in his chest. Like she’s somehow caught him without even trying _(hadn’t she from the beginning?)_ and she’s yanking on the line and dragging him battered and bruised and bloody all the way to her stupid little dorm room in New Haven.

_22.8 miles away. You looked it up._

His heart is racing, adrenaline and nerves and the four cigarettes he’d smoked one after the other as he white-knuckled the gear shift all the way here. So tightly his hand actually hurts, he thinks, flexing his fingers testily as he strides across the campus toward her residence hall. 

Mostly, Jess is thankful for the darkness, because while sure, yeah, the whole ivy-league collegiate Hogwarts feel of the Yale campus is impressive _(Hey, he can admit that. He can admit stuff just fine. For example, he can admit Finnegan’s Wake is impressive, too. Doesn’t mean he didn’t want to pull a Sylvia Plath while trying to read it)._ He still can’t shake the feeling like everyone is watching him. Like they’re all looking at him. Like they all know he’s not supposed to be here.

Because maybe he isn’t, and maybe he never was, but fuck it, when has Jess ever done what he was supposed to. 

Jess doesn’t know what to expect. Doesn’t even dare to even try because doing anything like that implied he had expectations. Hope.

Those were risky endeavors for a man like him. 

But since he’s being truthful and admitting stuff now, well, he can also admit he wasn’t quite expecting it when he throws the doors to Rory’s dorm open and it’s not just her he sees --

It’s Dean.

First of all, he’s almost offended by the cliche. Not to mention it’s a little bit too deja-vu-y, too bitterly familiar to see that giant oaf towering over her with that dopey look on his face. The sting of course, is Rory gazing back with that same look on her face. Jess is about to turn tail and run at this point, wondering if it was really truly possible for his heart to actually wince.

It would have been the perfect plan if she hadn’t seen him.

_“Jess?”_

…

Before she’d finally realized Jess had actually come back to Stars Hollow, Rory had been more than a little worried. Because it wouldn’t have been the first time that her brain had conjured him up since he’d disappeared. So, she’s actually almost relieved when he turns out to be flesh and blood, real, every irritating inch of him -- at least until that crushing sense of dread and sadness and pain _and, and, and_ that feeling like she was going to hurl up her entire heart out onto the floor, along with her stomach. 

Even after all this time, it’s like she can feel him. Something different in the air whenever he’s around, every hair on her neck standing to attention, her skin crackling with static electricity or something. So she knows he’s there before she actually sees him, her eyes flicking up to his a split second after the word leaves her lips:

_“Jess?”_

_“Rory?”_ Dean’s immediately defensive, giving her an incredulous side-eye as if she had somehow conjured him here into existence. Like this was somehow her fault. 

Jess, having apparently resigned himself to being caught, has gone stiff and still, near enough (but somehow too far, her mind unhelpfully supplies). He looks miserable _(almost as miserable as when he told you he loved you_ , she thinks, _like it had physically pained him to say it. And Rory, she honestly had kind of understood the feeling)._

“Dean,” Jess says curtly, doing that thing that guys did. That nod. Why always the nod, she wonders? What were the rules of the bro-nod, exactly?

“Jess,” Dean grits back (there’s that physical pain again, she thinks). 

Jess rolls his eyes, uses that barbed-wire tongue of his. “John, Martha, John, Martha. Has Freberg heard about you two?” _(She has to resist the urge to laugh. He always could make her laugh)._

Oh boy. Rory groans internally, bracing herself for the inevitable blowout. Max’s Keg Party all over again. Which was exactly what she needed right now. Exactly. “Dean -- please, don’t --”

“What is he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Rory says frantically, “I don’t know. I didn’t tell him to come here, I don’t want him here --” _(Lie, lie, lie , lie)_

Jess’s eyes fly up from his feet to meet hers, and suddenly Dean may as well have melted into the wall, because she can’t remember them being that dark before. Maybe they always were, and she just forgot. 

_“I need to talk to you.”_

Oh. No. No. No. No. Nope. Bad idea. So bad. Remember the hurling? Her brain desperately tries to remind her. 

And she knows Dean is waiting for her to send Jess away. For the last time. For Good. And she should, shouldn’t she? 

Of course she should.

Jess is over. Jess is done. She’s done. 

It’s done.

They're done.

_“Okay.”_


	2. So I try and swallow pride (but it's awful goin' down)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapters. I'm trying to beat off writer's block with a stick, and this seems to be the only way to keep my momentum going.
> 
> Thank you to anyone bothering to read and/or review c: 
> 
> ((Also, this is my first Gilmore Girl's fanfiction, so hopefully it doesn't suck too badly lol))

II. So I try and swallow pride (but it's awful goin' down)

“What are you doing, Rory?”

It’s a loaded question, she thinks, watching him watching her. Jess hasn’t taken his eyes off of her since he’d followed her inside her dorm room. Just like she remembered, being pinned by his gaze is as exhilarating and disorienting as it had always been before, peeking at him through her lashes as she tries so hard not to catch his eyes. 

She kind of hates him for that.  _ “You’re asking me?  _ You’re the one that showed up here. I didn’t have to even talk to you -- I didn’t --” she knows she’s babbling, doing everything she can to throw up some kind of wall between them, verbal or otherwise. A line he can’t cross because if he gets any closer, she might actually die. 

“Rory,  _ he’s married.” _

Having him stand across from her like this, his expression stormy, that familiar wrinkle between his brows. It makes her stomach feel like it's curdling. Like he has the right to judge her.  _ Him. Of all people.  _ Besides, she’s had enough of the Jess v. Dean rivalry to last a lifetime. That had been something she’d been perfectly happy not to take with her to college. Still, she thinks, Dean had been the one outside making things harder. Before she’d sent him away, he’d been the one who’d started needling Jess, trying to get a rise out of him.

A few years ago, it would have worked. But this time, Jess hadn’t even acknowledged him. Just shaken his head and slipped inside her door as soon as she’d opened it. He hadn’t even glanced back. Lot’s wife would have been proud, she thinks. “You don’t get to judge me -- you don’t get to --” she mutters, arms crossed defensively against her chest. 

“This isn’t you, you don’t do things like this, I know you,” Jess says firmly, like he doesn’t have a single doubt about it. 

“Then I guess you don’t know me anymore. Which makes perfect sense,” she spits, “since you haven’t exactly been around lately.”

Jess doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised by the words, or the venom behind them. And he doesn’t look mad, or angry. Instead, she thinks, wincing slightly at the realization, he just seems...sad. Unabashedly and nakedly sad. 

Somehow that’s even worse than any fight they’ve ever had. Pointed barbs and screaming matches, surly grunting and taciturn silence -- she can handle that particular spectrum of Jess emotions easily enough. But this is different. The way he’s looking at her...

“I’m sorry,” Jess whispers finally. Much like before, he looks like he’s in actual physical pain just saying the words.

And Rory is too afraid to even open her mouth to ask what for -- for right now? For three months ago?  _ What?  _

“For everything,” Jess says, like he can read her mind (he always could, Rory thinks, and right now she hates him for that, too).

“That’s not fair,” Rory says, trying not to cringe at how childish she sounds. 

“I know,” Jess says. Which doesn’t exactly help with the whole  _ not-fair _ feeling.

_ “I’m still mad at you.”  _

"I know." Jess’s lip curls up into a smirk that’s almost heartbreakingly familiar. “That’s fair. I deserve that.”

Rory growls, gritting her teeth. “Stop agreeing with me!” It’s truly embarrassing how hard she has to try not to literally stamp her feet. “Fight back!”

He chuckles bitterly and shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to do that.” 

If he won’t fight, then they have to talk, which is the exact opposite of what Rory wants to do right now. Still, the question comes out anyway, because she wants to know, deep down (not that deep), because  _ of course she does.  _ “Then--” she murmurs, biting her lip nervously and staring determinately at the floor, a little jarred to actually see the wood, scratched and faded, that had been hidden for most of the year under that hideous floral Persian rug her grandmother had chosen, “--then...what do you want?”

Jess sighs and runs his hand messily through his hair. Like he’s got any right to be the nervous one, Rory thinks bitterly. She’s the one who got blindsided here, right? 

“Come with me.” 

_ What. _

Rory blinks at him dumbly for a minute. “...Excuse me?”

“Come with me. Don’t go back to Stars Hollow for the summer,” Jess says, and then he’s stepping forward all slow and careful, like he’s scared of spooking her like she’s some wounded animal or something.

“You’re crazy,” Rory hisses, trying to keep that distinctly hysterical tone out of her voice. The closer he gets, the harder it is to resist letting him (and she hates that. God, she  _ hates that). _ “Why on earth would I do that?”

“You know why,” Jess says. He’s close enough to touch. It wouldn’t even be hard -- she’d barely have to reach. “Don’t go back.”

“But -- but I have to. I have to get a job, and see my mom -- and --” Rory stutters.

“And what?” Jess asks, eyebrow arched and his mouth curved into one of those damn smirks again. “See Dean?”

The dig hurts, and part of her knows the reason it does is because it’s true. He’s right, there is some part of her, some lonely, achy, needy, sad little part of her that wants Dean to swoop in and save her, be the white knight from one of her books, and fix her. She can’t decide if she’s madder at herself for feeling that way, or at Jess for seeing it so easily. “Why would I go with you? So you can change your mind halfway to where-ever-the-hell we end up and leave me somewhere?”

If he’s not going to play fair, then neither is she.

“I’m not leaving you again.” Jess’s eyes somehow seem to get darker. He’s so close now she can feel his breath, warm against her bare shoulder. “Not,” he murmurs, “unless you tell me to.”

Rory shivers, but her feet are obstinately glued to the floor. There are a million and one reasons why she should open her mouth and tell him to leave. To get out. Never come back because maybe then she’ll be able to finally forget him  _ (yeah, right).  _ “Jess, I can’t just--”

“So, is that what you’re telling me to do?” Jess asks. And god, it’s  _ really really really  _ not fair for him to look at her like that. Like he’s a puppy waiting to be kicked and he’s expecting her to do the kicking. “Don’t say no just because you’re scared. Only say no if you really don’t want to be with me. I love you, but I’ll let you go -- I’ll let you go if that’s what you really want.”

Is it? Is that what she wants?

For a moment, a single terrifying, glorious moment, she thinks he’s going to reach out and touch her, swipe his thumb over her cheekbone the way he always used to, and the thought makes her literally weak in the knees.

Her brain is screaming at her to do it: send him away forever. Because that would be the rational thing, the logical thing, probably the  _ right _ thing. And Rory is nothing if not a quintessential good girl. Doing the right thing is kind of her brand. But the idea of never seeing him again, it sends a pang through her chest like someone is reaching in and squeezing her lungs. 

It makes her feel like she can’t breathe.

It’s been too long since she’s said anything, and she’s not even sure actual words would come out if she tried. Jess’s eyes flicker to hers, and his hand falls back to his side as he steps back and starts to turn on his heel. Already, it feels like loss. Throbbing and empty. That’s what it feels like. 

_ “Don’t leave me behind again.” _

The words fall out of her mouth before she can stop them.

She can’t take them back. 

She doesn’t think she wants to.

…

She must know, Jess thinks. She must know that by him showing up here like this, so close to simply getting on his knees and begging her, that he’s ripping out what’s left of his heart that he’d tried to hide from her the first time and throwing it on the floor, bloody, between them. He has nothing left to give. Nothing else to offer. That hasn’t changed, but he wants to try. For her, he wants to try. 

She looks scared. Not that he blames her, because he’s right there with her. He’s fucking terrified. Has been this whole time. Since he got to Stars Hollow, since he ran the first time (and the second). Since her, since them, since Max’s stupid fucking keg party. Hasn’t ever stopped -- the difference now being he’s decided to stop being a chicken-shit coward about it. Because he loves Rory. He loves her so much, and trying not to hurts so much more than actually being in it. 

_ “Don’t leave me behind again.” _

Those might be the most beautiful words he’s ever heard, mostly because Jess hadn’t even let himself begin to imagine her saying them. He’s not expecting to actually feel her though, the fingers of her visibly shaking hand curling around his wrist and tugging so gently he’s not sure he actually felt it. With just a touch, Jess suddenly remembers long ago, being small and stupid and unsupervised with the genius idea of sticking a fork in an electrical outlet just to see what would happen (another shining example of Liz: Parent of the Year). It feels the same as being shocked, that pins and needles, muscles-too-tight-and-clenched feeling that makes him grind his teeth at the memory. 

She drops her hand too quickly for him to even react. To hold on, reach back like he’s been dying to since he walked in here. 

“I won’t,” he answers, “I know you couldn’t count on me before, but you can count on me now.  _ You can, Rory,  _ I promise I --” It’s all babbling promises and oaths and pleading, but it’s all true, it’s all true and she’s got to believe it he thinks. She’s got to --

“I’m coming back to Yale. In the fall,” she blurts out, wrenching her eyes from the floor to meet his. 

“Okay.”

“You have to get me back to Stars Hollow at least a few weeks before that. So my mom and I can --” she trails off here, biting at her lip like she’s anticipating the difficulties implied in that decision. Jess doesn’t blame her. 

Lorelai was Lorelai. 

“Fine,” Jess says quickly, nodding. Honestly, she could have asked for anything in this moment, and he’d try to give it to her. These conditions were sort of implied from the beginning, anyway. He’d deal with the implications of all of that later, mainly dealing with Rory’s mother, who was absolutely not his biggest fan.

Unless he means “biggest fan” in a Mark David Chapman kind of way.

Whatever. 

He could deal with that. He’s got time. 

“And I --,” Rory starts, shoving her lip between her teeth again in a way that absolutely shouldn’t be as alluring as it is, “I can’t say it back, Jess. I don’t know if I can ever -- “

She might be fumbling here, but Jess has always been good at reading between her lines. Just because they’re doing this, doesn’t mean he’s forgiven. Doesn’t mean she’s ready to hand him anything, let alone her heart.

He’s going to have to earn it.

And that’s just fine because Jess is pretty sure he’s up to the challenge now. 

“Okay,” he says, quiet and resolute. “Okay.” 

  
  



End file.
